This beautiful image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows the night sides of Saturn and its fifth largest moon, Tethys.
This Cassini image shows the night sides of Saturn and Tethys. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.
The image was taken with the Wide Angle Camera on board Cassini on January 15, 2015, using a spectral filter which preferentially admits wavelengths of near-IR light.
The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.5 million miles (2.4 million km) from the gas giant.
Tethys is just barely seen in the lower left quadrant of this image below the ring plane.
The moon has been brightened by a factor of 3 to increase its visibility.
The wavy outline of a unique six-sided jet stream, known as Saturn’s polar hexagon, is visible at top center.
This view looks toward the sunlit side of Saturn’s rings from about 10 degrees above the ring plane.
This image of Tethys was snapped on May 9, 2015 from a distance of 186,000 miles (300,000 km) from the moon. The moon’s dark side is faintly illuminated by reflected light from Saturn. North on Tethys is up in this view. The impact crater Odysseus is seen at the left. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.
“We know that shadows are darker areas than sunlit areas, and in space, with no air to scatter the light, shadows can appear almost totally black,” said NASA scientists in a press release.
